Beekast

Beekast is interactive training and meeting software: a facilitator builds a session of slides and activities, participants join from their own devices, and everyone answers polls, quizzes, word clouds and boards in the room, remotely or in a hybrid setup. It is aimed at trainers, L&D and HR teams, consultants and managers, and its pricing page adds education rates for teachers and students. The company's About page says Beekast was created in 2015 by Yassine Chabli and Quentin Georget, is located in Paris and Nantes, raised 2.7M€ in 2016, and counts 40 co-workers. It cites 1,500 customers worldwide, from large companies such as Google and Total to independent trainers and consultants, and the homepage gives "2 Million Users".

Building and running a session

Sessions are built in a web editor, and the homepage counts "15+ interactive activities". The features page names Word Cloud, Board, Survey, MCQ, Metaphor, Canvas, Form, Prioritization, Challenge, Selfie Wall, Ranking and Matrix, and the pricing page lists the eight available on the free plan: Word Cloud, Quiz, Survey, Speedboat, Matching, Photo Wall, Pin on Image and Rating. A trainer can open with a pre-training questionnaire, check understanding with a multiple-choice question or quiz, rank priorities, and close with a mood gauge. The template library holds "over 100 interactive meeting templates", among them Blob Tree for sharing a state of mind, Emoji Gauge for a quick mood check, Square Review for a group debrief and Flash Feedback for fast suggestions. PowerPoint and PDF files can be imported straight into a session.

Pollen Create is the AI assistant built into the editor. You describe the session you need, or drop in a presentation you already use, and the homepage says it builds the structure (activities, running order, instructions and timings) "in under a minute", explaining why it picked, say, a ranking rather than a poll. A separate session-improvement mode adds activities, rebalances timing or adapts the tone of an existing session. Pollen Focus groups word cloud answers by theme and adds a sentiment analysis. The pricing FAQ explains the credits: one credit is one session created, chatting with Pollen and running sessions use none, a new session can be refined freely for 48 hours, and credits renew every month.

Delivery works in two modes. In facilitator mode the trainer moves the slides for everyone in real time; in participant mode each person goes at their own pace. The homepage describes self-paced learning paths with interactive checkpoints, so a trainer can track progress without running the session live. A projection screen view puts the presentation on a projector or TV, tabs gather agendas, documents and web pages in one place, and the discussion board lets participants post, like and comment, share photos and videos, and ask questions. Moderators and co-moderators choose which messages to publish, can allow anonymous posting, and project the ones they want to highlight. Team play turns a session into a team competition with a collective podium running beside the individual one.

Reports, attendance and follow-up

After a session, Beekast generates a report "in just one click". The free plan exports PDF reports, Plus adds Word, and Pro adds detailed statistics and XLS export. The Actions and Decisions feature records tasks and decisions during a meeting and produces an action plan to send to the team. Attendance is confirmed in one click, and the platform records each participant's login times at the start and end of the session; Pro adds an exportable attendance sheet. Master and Clone sessions let a team run one standard session many times, with every clone's results aggregated in a single dashboard, which suits a training program delivered by several trainers.

Participants can join as an avatar with no account needed, or be identified by email or username, and the pricing table widens those options on the higher plans. Live moderation and user management for an organization's accounts are part of the security controls.

Integrations and security

The integrations page lists Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Webex and Livestorm, plus Jitsi video, which is built into Beekast and included in the subscription so participants see each other and the activities on one screen. Google Meet and Prezi are named as compatible, the pricing table adds Google Drive, Genial.ly and SMS, and an iframe option embeds interactive presentations in SharePoint and Moodle. The pricing FAQ says the Pro plan adds "Premium integrations with tools like Zoom and Microsoft Teams".

On security, Beekast states that it is "GDPR-compliant, ISO/IEC 27001 certified", that it is hosted in Europe in data centers located in Ireland, and that session content is never used to train AI models. Enterprise adds SSO authentication.

Plans and prices

Prices are in euros, per license and excluding tax, and the page says annual billing saves up to 35%:

• Free, 0€ a month: 3 sessions and 30 unique participants a month, up to 5 slides per session, 8 activity types, PDF reports, self-paced sessions, and 1 Pollen Create session a month.
• Plus, 29€ a month billed monthly or 21€ a month billed annually, for up to two licenses: unlimited sessions and slides, unlimited monthly participants with up to 50 per session, all 15 activity types, PDF and Word reports, and 3 Pollen Create sessions a month.
• Pro, 65€ (monthly) or 49€ (annual) per license for the first two licenses, then 54€ or 44€ from the third: up to 100 participants per session, collaborators and hosts, co-created slides, Master/Clone sessions, detailed analytics, attendance sheet, team play, all integrations, and 20 Pollen Create sessions a month on the plan card (the FAQ says Pro yearly has no monthly quota, under a fair use policy).
• Enterprise, custom pricing: custom participant limits, SSO, priority support, personalized onboarding, a custom SLA and a dedicated customer success contact.

Teachers and students with a valid academic email get special education rates, with "Up to 500 students in the lowest plan", and events with more than 100 participants have their own offer. The free trial needs no credit card, and plans can be upgraded or downgraded at any time from the account dashboard. Support runs through a live chat that promises an answer "in under 2 min", a call-back of 10 to 15 minutes, and tailored demos.

Who it suits and who it does not

Beekast suits a trainer or L&D team that runs live or blended sessions and wants participation it can measure: onboarding cohorts, compliance or product training, workshops, retrospectives and all-hands meetings. Teachers can use the education rates for quizzes, polls and boards in class, and the self-paced mode lets them set work between lessons. Customer quotes on the site come from organizations such as Caisse des Dépôts, MACSF and Action Logement Services, where the last reports an average participation rate "already over 90%".

It suits less well anyone who needs a full course platform. Beekast runs sessions and reports on them; it is not an LMS for selling courses or keeping grades, and its Moodle and SharePoint option is an iframe embed. The free plan's 30 unique participants a month fills quickly with a single class, so regular classroom use points to the education plan or Plus.